


Tommy the gun

by harin91



Series: Sledgefu week [3]
Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: 'With the Old Breed' book reference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Sharing, Weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 10:39:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18754777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harin91/pseuds/harin91
Summary: parenthood is a risky business when you're at war and the kid is a deadly inanimate object





	Tommy the gun

**Author's Note:**

> This is an entry for the **Sledgefu week 2019 - Day 3: Sharing**  
>  Please note that this work is not beta-ed and English is not my first language which means I'm sorry for any mistake you may find in it. This is also the reason why I haven't written Snafu's dialogues attempting a Louisiana accent... I wouldn't have done it right. Just assume he speaks like we all know!  
> I also want to add that, despite this fic being light and almost fluff, it's absolutely not my intention to galvanize/minimize war or make fun of it.
> 
> The idea comes from a scene in Eugene Sledge's book 'With the Old Breed'
> 
> See the end for more notes :)

_When Snafu woke me about midnight for my turn on watch, he handed me our “Tommy” (submachine) gun. (I don’t remember how, where, or when we got the Tommy gun, but Snafu and I took turns carrying it and the mortar through-out Peleliu and Okinawa. A pistol was fine but limited at close range, so we valued our Tommy greatly.)_

_(Eugene Sledge - ‘With the Old Breed’)_

 

War did awful things to one’s body and soul, but its monotonous repetition of rush and kill and fear and mourn did also awful things to one’s memory, Sledge soon found out.

He tried his best to keep track of the passing of time, filling his pocket bible’s pages with tally marks and noting down the most salient events, but some things just slipped out, eluding his tired mind.

One of these mysterious events had been how, where and when he and Snafu had found themselves with a shared new weapon together with their .60mm mortar. It was a .45 Thompson submachine gun, a ‘Tommy’ as they were commonly known in the forces.  
It must have been found somewhere around Peleliu’s ridges and Sledge could safely bet it had been Snafu to bring it back to their shared foxhole, always inclined as he was to go look for free things to snatch and keep as his own.

Sledge didn’t know how this Tommy had been decided to become a shared possession of the two of them, but that had been its destiny: they got ammos and they kept it clean like all their other weapons. They were also used to hand it to each other every time one of them had to go on patrol.

Many other marines shared non pre-issued, automatic weapons with their buddies, so theirs was definitely not a strange situation: nonetheless, his and Snafu’s Tommy gun soon became legendary in company K/3/5, the object of many jokes and stories and speculations for many men around them.

 

“Hey, Snafu!” had exclaimed once a cocky rifleman during a lull in the operations, as they were all safely resting behind the side of a high rocky boulder: “Do you also cradle that thing at night when it can’t sleep?” he asked, making the men near him snicker and laugh.

“Naw, boo. That’s Sledgehammer’s job.” had replied Snafu without missing a beat. He was carefully checking the submachine gun, turning it around while having it placed on his lap.

“Oh, yeah? My bad, pegged you as the wifey.” said again the man, faking being sorry.

“Who knows what goes on in that foxhole of theirs at night.” smirked one of his friends, whistling: “Don’t go between the tree and the bark.” he added wisely.

Snafu was ready to snap back with something mean and insulting, but Eugene just growled: “Don’t.” in his best authoritative tone, knowing fully well he was considered one of the few with the power to placate Shelton’s rage. As predicted, Shelton deflated visibly, grumbled under his breath and kept working on checking his equipments.

At some point Jay asked candidly: “What’s its name?” completely out of the blue, pointing at the gun and making all the others sputter and Eugene roll his eyes in exasperation.

“Tommy.” replied Snafu with a shrug and no one could figure out if he was taking the piss off De L’Eau or had just honestly decided his and Sledge’s weapon’s first name.

And that was when K company collectively decided that Sledge and Snafu had officially adopted Tommy, their submachine gun.

 

At some point in Okinawa, especially during the very first weeks of light patrol duties and long waiting hours in the rear, they also started sharing the joke, by then all to accustomed in making the best out of the small breaks of light atmosphere they could gather, sacrificing their own pride and reputation in exchange of lifting their and their buddies’ spirits.

When one of them was called on patrol duty without the other, they would stage their own special farewell moment, with the one staying in the foxhole solemnly hading the Tommy to the other and saying something like: “Take care of the kid.” or “Be good for daddy.”

“Oh, so I’m the daddy now?” once asked Sledge, eyebrow raised in an amused question as he took the Tommy and got up to join the patrol party.

“Jesus Christ!” yelled Leyden from his foxhole: “I don’t wanna know!” he cried, covering his ears and crouching down, while Burgie laughed until he cried and all the new replacements looked extremely fazed by the situation.

 

One other time, when it had been Snafu’s turn to carry the Tommy on patrol with a squad leaded by Lt. Mac, they encountered a group of Japanese soldiers and got ambushed.

Eugene only heard about this event when the squad came back, fortunately almost completely unharmed, and Hamm had started sharing the story of how Shelton had had problems trying to fix his jammed submachine gun.

“I swear I heard him say ‘ _c’mon, cher. Do this for me or daddy won’t be happy_ ’ as he was freeing the trigger!” he exclaimed, still a bit shaken by the ambush he had just lived through.

“Lyin’ makes you go ta hell, Hammbone.” sneered without humour Snafu from his spot, showing his teeth like a menacing wild animal.

“He isn’t lying though, is he?” asked Burgie knowingly, smoking his cigarette.

“Well, I wouldn’t have been happy to know Tommy had misbehaved,” agreed Eugene, just to take the piss out of Shelton a bit more: “So you were kind of right to say so.”

“You’re still identified as the daddy, then?” asked curiously Burgin.

“Please. Please, stop. I beg you.” sighed Bill, voice pained: “I might shoot myself back to the infirmary just so I won’t have to hear the two of you play family ever again.” he added.

Snafu’s head quirked up at that and his infuriating smirk came back at full force on his thin lips: “This is an opportunity not to be missed!” he exclaimed, ready to call Sledge something scandalous just for the sake of making Leyden suffer.

Eugene stopped him before they could start yet another catfight.

 

One grim day during one of the worst battles in Okinawa, they lost Tommy.

In total fairness, it had probably been more Sledge’s fault than Snafu’s, since he had been the last one to use the submachine gun the previous day. But that knowledge didn’t stop him to bite back at Snafu’s accusations when they were safe enough to stop running and firing at the enemy, although still too far from the foxhole where the gun had been forgotten.

“Jesus, Snaf! Would you quit it? There’s a chance it’d still be there when we get back!” cried Eugene, tired of Shelton’s blaming whines while having to deal with his own failure.

“ _If_ we get back, Sledgehammer! _If_ the Japs hadn’t raid the place already! Or the army for all we know!” he barked, crazed eyes two black pins in a sea of red streaked white: “Fuck, was it too hard a task to remember to bring your fucking weapon with you?” he yelled again, rage almost a palpable manifestation in his body posture, on all his features.

“We got our weapons,” he pointed out, exasperated: “We got the mortar too.”

“Yes ‘cause _I_ took it!” replied Snafu: “The Tommy was your damn job and you blew it, rich boy! You screwed it for us both!” he screamed, like they weren’t in the middle of a battlefield, like they could have this conversation right at the moment.

“Shut up, Shelton.” snarled Eugene, sitting down in the improvised shelter they found to gather his thoughts.

“Fuck you, Eugene.” promptly replied Shelton, storming off to go sulk and smoke somewhere as farther from Sledge as the circumstances would let him.

“Troubles in paradise?” asked in the tiniest voice Hamm, almost scared.

“I would shut up immediately if I were you.” warned him Burgie, not too far enough for Eugene to miss it and feel any less miserable.

 

Like it was waiting for them, the Tommy gun never left their foxhole in their absence and they were lucky enough to get back to that position at evening to find it still there.

Snafu snatched it up immediately as they crouched down to rest and didn’t speak to Sledge for the whole night, brows furrowed in attempt to still look pissed off even though the problem had been resolved.

The next day, as they got ready to leave the foxholes, this time less hurriedly than the day before, Shelton tapped Sledge lightly on the shoulder and handed him the submachine gun, with a tiny smile that Eugene would have thought was almost shy if he didn’t know him well enough by then: “Take care of the kid.” he drawled slowly as Sledge braced the Tommy.

“Here we go again.” they heard someone sigh, but were too preoccupied smirking at each other to bother finding out who.

 

Then it got time to part.

When the battle for Okinawa was over and they were told the Japanese had surrendered in early August, most of the veterans of three campaigns were assigned to go back stateside while the others waited for a transfer to Northern China.

Snafu was a veteran of Cape Gloucester, Peleliu and Okinawa, so Eugene dreaded the moment he was going to be told to pack his bags and finally go home. They had been arguably the strangest duo the Marine Corp had had in its ranks probably since forever, but they had worked together so well. They had forged some kind of synergy, a way of completing each other so uniquely Eugene was sure he was going to miss it. To miss Snafu.

God, he was going to miss Snafu so much. For so many reasons.

 

When the day of the ship’s departure came, Snafu was waiting for the call in his and Eugene’s tend. He took his time packing his things and lazily smoking his cigarettes, delaying the goodbyes to the very last. He then had to accept a hug and an almost motherly flow of recommendations from Burgie before turning to look at Eugene.

They stood there in silence, gazing into each other’s eyes like they had all the time in the world to catalogue and remember everything about one another. Like it wasn’t the last time they could do so.  
Burgie soon figured out something else to do and somewhere else to be, an excuse to give them privacy.

“Will you write me?” asked at some point Eugene, clearing his throat because his voice had sounded too hoarse, vulnerable.

“I can’t write.” lied Shelton with a full smirk, making him snort.

“You’re full of shit, Snafu.” sighed Sledge, almost fondly.

“Just take care of Tommy for me, okay? Don’t let it miss daddy too much.” he said, looking completely too honest for someone who was joking about a military weapon.

“Glad we figured out who the daddy was all along.” teased Sledge once again, to break the sudden tension.

“We both are, Gene. We both are.” repeated Snafu: “It’s just one lucky machine gun.”

“Lucky, yes. That’s exactly the term I would have used.” he added. Then he decided he had enough of their embarrassed looks at each other and just stepped forward to hug Shelton close, feeling the warmth of his body and his distinctive smell one last time.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” said Sledge at his ear, still unable to let the other go.

“You say that as I’m about to do the most stupid thing.” sighed Shelton, a shaken breath on Eugene’s neck that had him reel back to look at the other in confusion.

That was when Shelton closed the gap between them to kiss him, the quickest brush of lips, hurried and afraid, but real nonetheless.

“I… yes, that was pretty stupid.” agreed Eugene, after taking a bunch of seconds to recover from the shock. They were completely alone, no one had seen them, but it still had felt too dangerous.

“Had to be done.” said solemnly Snafu, with a careless shrug that would had infuriated Eugene if he hadn’t been busy grabbing the other by the front of his uniform to bring him back toward him. They stood face to face, noses almost brushing.

“Done? In such a half-assed manner? That was poor even for you, Snaf.” he grinned: “Do it again, properly this time.” he prompted.

Snafu did.

And when they parted for air, the first thing Sledge noticed of their surroundings was their Tommy gun, propped up against his cot, like it had been watching them the whole time.

“Right in front of the baby.” he joked, caressing Snafu’s nape while the other laughed his bark-like, carefree laugh.

 

\- - - - -

 

**Notes:**

 

As I was reading 'China Marine' (and I'm still reading it so maybe I am wrong about this) I noticed how Sledge mostly stopped mentioning Snafu after Okinawa, having instead said how the veterans of three battles were shipped home at the end of the war. This concept of Snafu not going to China diverge from series canon (and probably also from reality as well) but I wanted to try it. It's still sad, but at least they got a proper goodbye this time (and smooches session and MAYBE a promise to write to each other? Of course to get updates about Tommy).

I know it's silly and fluffy, but I hope you liked it nonetheless!


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